"There are billions of comets in the solar system, but this will be only the fifth time a spacecraft has flown close enough to one to snap pictures of its nucleus," says Lori Feaga of the EPOXI science team. "This one should put on quite a show!"

t the core of the system is a small piece of glass with a highly complex pattern inscribed into its surface. Called an Apodizing Phase Plate, or APP, the device blocks out the starlight in a very defined way, allowing planets to show up in the image

Here’s a slightly different version of the battle between Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader at the end of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. It’s just one of many revelations in a new making-of book. More rare concept art below

After making its first solo glide flight Sunday (Oct. 10), the private suborbital spacecraft SpaceShipTwo could achieve another major milestone — a powered test flight involving the firing of its rocket motor — in the next few months

Ragbir Bhathal, an astrophysicist at the University of Western Sydney claims the light pulses he detected in December 2008 is from the region of space where the extrasolar planet Gliese 581g orbits a red dwarf star.
Recently, Gliese 581g was decla

A private suborbital spaceship flew its first solo test flight today (Oct.10) from Mojave Air and Space Port in California. Though the craft did not reach space, it was a major milestone for the Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo, which flew in glide mode

NASA is preparing a flurry of new spacecraft launches, planetary flybys and orbital insertions in the next two years, and is celebrating the “Year of the Solar System” to mark the occasion. Twenty-three months is actually a Martian year, so hey, it w

researchers inspecting the asteroid dust from JAXA’s the Hyabusa mission – the seven-year round trip that landed a probe on a passing asteroid before returning to Earth – have found particles that could contain signs of extraterrestrial life.

As a general rule, when NASA flies a scientific mission all the way to Mars, we expect that mission to last for a while. For instance, the Spirit and Opportunity rovers were slated to run for three months and are still operating 6 years later.

During each month of YSS, NASA's Year of the Solar System web site (http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/yss) will highlight different missions, planets, and night sky events, weaving together activities, resources, and ideas that teachers can use to build

As the ultimate source of all the energy on Earth, the sun has an inextricable hand in driving our planet's climate and atmosphere. But a new look at the sun's connection to Earth's climate has returned some surprising results.

A pair of Russian aerospace companies have announced plans to launch the first commercial space station, in 2015 or perhaps 2016. The station will have room for up to seven astronauts, scientists, and wealthy citizens to perform experiments or just t

Black holes, whose existence is now universally accepted by astronomers, are thought to be the remnant of celestial objects such as stars or galaxies that have collapsed under the strength of their own gravity.

An Earth-size planet has been spotted orbiting a nearby star at a distance that would makes it not too hot and not too cold — comfortable enough for life to exist. Gliese 581g would be the first Earth-like world found residing in a star's habitable z

Virgin Galactic, which aims to become the world's first commercial company to promote space tourism, has already collected 45 million dollars in deposits from more than 330 people who have reserved seats aboard the six-person craft.

Boeing and Las Vegas-based Bigelow Aerospace won an $18 million contract from Boeing earlier this year for development and testing of a space capsule capable of carrying astronauts to the space station and back.

Four Russian-made rocket engines are on their way to NASA. The high-tech RD-180 boosters weigh over 5 tons. They are considered heavyweights in the engine world and will serve as boosters for the Atlas space rockets. (Atlas Rockets transport satellit

agine this: A wedge-shaped aircraft attached to a supersonic jet engine is hurtling along an electrified track, carrying a pod or spacecraft destined for orbit.
Sound farfetched? It may not be.
A team of engineers from NASA's Kennedy Space Center

Even though the planet Mercury is one of the brightest objects in the sky, it is one of the most rarely seen. But this week is one of the few occasions when the small planet is well-placed for skywatchers.

Just six miles of atmosphere separates mankind from outer-space. In fact, a rocket can travel from the surface of our planet to space in just five minutes. In space, everything is different. With no atmosphere, the human eye can literally see for hun